Last year, it was announced that post-launch content for Mortal Kombat 1 was finished with. NetherRealm Studios promised to continue updating the game for a time in the form of balance updates, but there would be no more characters or story chapters added.
Of course, the studio also confirmed that they had moved on, and is now focused on its next project. According to Ed Boon, there’s NRS is always working on multiple games, indicating that this next project may have already had some work started on it before the conclusion of Mortal Kombat 1 content.
“We are always working on multiple games,” said Ed Boon about a year prior to when Mortal Kombat 1 was released.
“I don’t know if there was ever a time where we only had one game we were working on. There’s stuff we’re working on that’s coming on down the line…” — Ed Boon
“We have mobile games, we have our console games. We often start our next game in ideation, or research, or creating an art bible or something like that, as well as games that I can’t even mention obviously.”
“I don’t know if there was ever a time where we only had one game we were working on. There’s stuff we’re working on that’s coming on down the line…”
With all of that in mind, George Hufnagl, a Senior Sound Designer (focused on dialogue) for NRS, recently highlighted temporary Quality Assurance Testers for the next NRS project.
This heavily implies that NetherRealm Studios’ next project is already in a testing phase. Some fans are theorizing on the possibility that the developers may be ready to show off this next project Summer Game Fest 2026, which begins on June 5, 2026.
While it might seem like it’s too soon for NRS to show off their next game like this, Ed Boon’s previous statements about how they’re always working on multiple games could indicate otherwise.
There’s also plenty of speculation going around about what the next NRS game could be. The likeliest possibilities are either the next Mortal Kombat entry or a return to the Injustice series after nearly nine years since Injustice 2 was released.
Oddly, Injustice 2 was recently updated on Steam after years of inactivity. As of right now, nobody is sure what this update was even about, but it’s certainly interesting to note that some subset of developers at NRS have their attention focused on the Injustice series.
We’ll just have to wait and see what comes off all of this, possibly in the near future.